Part 7

At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: “Father!”

Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave

deliberation; “If there is anything you want to say to me,” he said,

“you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and

then I shall go to the study. I don’t see what you can have to say. I

should have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers

I have to look through to-night--important papers.”

“I won’t keep you very long, daddy,” said Ann Veronica.

“I don’t see, Mollie,” he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on

the table as his sister and daughter rose, “why you and Vee shouldn’t

discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without bothering me.”

It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all

three of them were shy by habit.

He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for her

aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the room

with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her own

room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confused

her that the girl should not come to her.

It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited

disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt.

When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of a

carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had been

moved a little so as to face each other on either side of the

fender, and in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay,

conspicuously waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tied

with pink tape. Her father held some printed document in his hand,

and appeared not to observe her entry. “Sit down,” he said, and

perused--“perused” is the word for it--for some moments. Then he put

the paper by. “And what is it all about, Veronica?” he asked, with a

deliberate note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his

glasses.

Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded

her father’s invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and

looked down on him. “Look here, daddy,” she said, in a tone of great

reasonableness, “I MUST go to that dance, you know.”

Her father’s irony deepened. “Why?” he asked, suavely.

Her answer was not quite ready. “Well, because I don’t see any reason

why I shouldn’t.”

“You see I do.”

“Why shouldn’t I go?”

“It isn’t a suitable place; it isn’t a suitable gathering.”

“But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?”

“And it’s entirely out of order; it isn’t right, it isn’t correct;

it’s impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London--the idea is

preposterous. I can’t imagine what possessed you, Veronica.”

He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and

looked at her over his glasses.

“But why is it preposterous?” asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a

pipe on the mantel.

“Surely!” he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal.

“You see, daddy, I don’t think it IS preposterous. That’s really what

I want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to take care of

myself, or am I not?”

“To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not.”

“I think I am.”

“As long as you remain under my roof--” he began, and paused.

“You are going to treat me as though I wasn’t. Well, I don’t think

that’s fair.”

“Your ideas of fairness--” he remarked, and discontinued that sentence.

“My dear girl,” he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, “you are a

mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of

its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, and so

forth. It isn’t. It isn’t. That’s where you go wrong. In some things,

in many things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more of

life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this matter. There

it is. You can’t go.”

The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep hold of

a complicated situation and not lose her head. She had turned round

sideways, so as to look down into the fire.

“You see, father,” she said, “it isn’t only this affair of the dance.

I want to go to that because it’s a new experience, because I think

it will be interesting and give me a view of things. You say I know

nothing. That’s probably true. But how am I to know of things?”

“Some things I hope you may never know,” he said.

“I’m not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can.”

“Tut!” he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the pink

tape.

“Well, I do. It’s just that I want to say. I want to be a human being;

I want to learn about things and know about things, and not to be

protected as something too precious for life, cooped up in one narrow

little corner.”

“Cooped up!” he cried. “Did I stand in the way of your going to college?

Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable hour? You’ve got

a bicycle!”

“H’m!” said Ann Veronica, and then went on “I want to be taken

seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with

my University work under proper conditions, now that I’ve done the

Intermediate. It isn’t as though I haven’t done well. I’ve never muffed

an exam yet. Roddy muffed two....”

Her father interrupted. “Now look here, Veronica, let us be plain with

each other. You are not going to that infidel Russell’s classes. You are

not going anywhere but to the Tredgold College. I’ve thought that out,

and you must make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come

in. While you live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong

even about that man’s scientific position and his standard of work.

There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at him.

And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as being--well,

next door to shameful. There’s stories, too, about his demonstrator,

Capes Something or other. The kind of man who isn’t content with his

science, and writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it

is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE.”

The girl received this intimation in silence, but the face that looked

down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought out

a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke,

her lips twitched.

“Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?”

“It seems the natural course--”

“And do nothing?”

“There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home.”

“Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?”

He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, and

he took up the papers.

“Look here, father,” she said, with a change in her voice, “suppose I

won’t stand it?”

He regarded her as though this was a new idea.

“Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?”

“You won’t.”

“Well”--her breath failed her for a moment. “How would you prevent it?”

she asked.

“But I have forbidden it!” he said, raising his voice.

“Yes, I know. But suppose I go?”

“Now, Veronica! No, no. This won’t do. Understand me! I forbid it. I

do not want to hear from you even the threat of disobedience.” He spoke

loudly. “The thing is forbidden!”

“I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong.”

“You will give up anything I wish you to give up.”

They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were flushed

and obstinate.

She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless gymnastics to

restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips quivered, and they

came. “I mean to go to that dance!” she blubbered. “I mean to go to

that dance! I meant to reason with you, but you won’t reason. You’re

dogmatic.”

At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of

triumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an

arm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She produced a

handkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a simultaneous gulp had

abolished her fit of weeping. His voice now had lost its ironies.

“Now, Veronica,” he pleaded, “Veronica, this is most unreasonable. All

we do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor I have any other thought

but what is best for you.”

“Only you won’t let me live. Only you won’t let me exist!”

Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly.

“What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO live, you

DO exist! You have this home. You have friends, acquaintances, social

standing, brothers and sisters, every advantage! Instead of which, you

want to go to some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance

about at nights in wild costumes with casual art student friends and God

knows who. That--that isn’t living! You are beside yourself. You don’t

know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor logic.

I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your good. You

MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I put my foot down

like--like adamant. And a time will come, Veronica, mark my words, a

time will come when you will bless me for my firmness to-night. It goes

to my heart to disappoint you, but this thing must not be.”

He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in

possession of the hearth-rug.

“Well,” she said, “good-night, father.”

“What!” he asked; “not a kiss?”

She affected not to hear.

The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained standing

before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat down and filled

his pipe slowly and thoughtfully....

“I don’t see what else I could have said,” he remarked.

CHAPTER THE SECOND

ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW